Hockey steps in to clean up the mess

Those listening carefully last Friday may have almost caught Treasurer Joe Hockey humming a few bars from “Sadie the cleaning lady” as he announced his innovative infrastructure deal with state and territory treasurers.

For it was left to the Government’s chief budget spruiker to mop up the political detritus left by his colleagues over the preceding week and get the budget expectations campaign back on track.

The Treasurer, formerly known as Sloppy Joe, is painfully aware that his own credibility as well as that of the Abbott Government is vested in how well the public and the media receive his first budget.

That reception is reliant on a campaign of softening up the voters to expect decisions that are tough but fair, and to build acceptance even before the budget is handed down by creating a sense of momentum and inevitability.

Traditionally, the government uses the final week of Parliament before the six-week break leading up to the budget to create that sense of momentum. So a week playing Knights and Bigots was a distraction Hockey could ill afford.

Nevertheless, Hockey took to the clean-up task with relish. On Friday he threw the states and territories a juicy incentive to sell off their assets, under the guise of an almost too clever euphemism “asset recycling“, thereby effecting a workmanlike attempt to draw our eyes away from the car crash that was last week’s Parliament and refocus our gaze on matters economic.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann rolled up his sleeves and joined in on Sunday, authoritatively re-establishing the narrative about “Operation Repair the Budget”. He attended to a few stray splashes by reaffirming the Coalition had committed only to the first four years of Gonski funding and that the NDIS would be implemented in a way that was “efficient and as well-targetted as possible”.

Cormann devoted considerable elbow grease to the troublesome Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms, hoping to dispel concerns over what he claimed to be inaccurate depictions of the changes. He repeated, again, that he developed the reforms as the shadow minister for financial services and superannuation after extensive consultation and a series of parliamentary inquiries that looked at financial products and services.

This appeared to be as much an effort to distance the reforms from the standing-aside Assistant Treasurer, Arthur Sinodinos, as they were to calm citizens concerned about rampaging financial advisers. The former Australian Water Holdings chairman is due to give evidence to the ICAC on Wednesday, at which time Sinodinos’s many fans may be confronted with uncomfortable truths about the fallibility of their man’s widely-regarded political acumen.

Sinodinos has undoubtedly opened a chink on the Government’s flank, causing them to be at least temporarily circumspect when it comes to dodgy deals and corruption. This became clear when, amongst the many dramas unravelling in Parliament last week, barely a peep was heard about the sentencing of former Labor MP Craig Thomson and former ALP President Michael Williamson, for misusing union funds.

Had Sinodinos not been in the picture, Thomson and Williamson would have been brandished by the Government as further justification of the need for the royal commission into union corruption and used to wedge Opposition Leader Bill Shorten from his union support base.

Instead, the Parliament was subjected to the Prime Minister’s twin indulgences, a Racial Discrimination Act retrofitted to accommodate Andrew Bolt and the reintroduction of an archaic honours system.

Perhaps Liberal voters in Western Australia, who are required to attend a polling booth this weekend for the fourth time in 12 months, consider these relics attractive. It’s more likely they’re interested in jobs, health and education, all of which were barely mentioned by the Government last week.

Ironically, Shorten was more on-song with Hockey than the Prime Minister. In his first address to the National Press Club since becoming Leader of the Opposition, Shorten contributed Labor’s threads to the budget narrative by defending his party’s economic record while in government and helpfully nominating four criteria by which the opposition would (and the media “should”) judge the budget.

Shorten also sounded a curious dog whistle to conservative voters, who are traditionally wary of change, warning that a government’s priorities determine whether people are the victims or beneficiaries of change. Shorten cautioned that Abbott’s “bleak, hopeless brand of Darwinsim” means adapting to economic change will require “deep cuts to services, longer unemployment queues, lower wages and lower levels of government support.” We can expect to hear more of that refrain in the coming weeks.

Parliament may be over until the budget is brought down in May, but Hockey shouldn’t put his mop and bucket away just yet. This time next week, he’ll have to contend with another distraction from the budget as parties and commentators alike paw through the entrails of the WA Senate election re-run.

Depending on the election outcome, political strategies and budget narratives may have to be adjusted. Hockey may have to kickstart the budget expectations campaign yet again to create the momentum needed to consolidate public acceptance. And with less than five weeks to go to the budget, there will be little or no time left to mop up after any further prime ministerial acts of self-indulgence.